Thursday, 2 August 2012

It surely is entirely missing the point to suggest the student, (in this case Steve Bloor), is at fault for not paying attention, when the more concerning issue is that the instructor, (“The Church”), has failed to teach the subject matter thoroughly. I cannot recall having read about JS’s eleven polyandrous marriages in any church sponsored publication over the last 40 years, nor anything about his well attested method of procuring plural wives, some as young as 14, by claiming death threats issued by angels with drawn swords, or by promises of unconditional exaltation for whole families. Cherry picking for publication a few instances of JS’s polygamous marriages of which Emma may actually have been aware, and placing them in what amounts to small print, as far as present-day latter-day saints are concerned, hardly justifies claims of openness and honesty, and, may I say, it seems somewhat disingenuous to pretend that it does. Likewise, I have not seen the church producing any explanation which approaches credibility concerning the catastrophic demise of the Book of Abraham, which has been part of LDS canon since the 1880s. A straw poll of sacrament attendees in the UK would I suspect reveal gross ignorance about that particularly vital subject. Is it that they too have not been paying attention, or is it that once more the instructor has defaulted on his moral responsibility to make available the facts? Surely, when the man who is proclaimed to be the prophet of the restoration, translates a regular Egyptian glyph which we now know means “water” as “It was made after the form of a bedstead, such as was had among the Chaldeans, and it stood before the gods of Elkenah, Libnah, Mahmackrah, Korash, and also a god like unto that of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. That you may have an understanding of these gods, I have given you the fashion of them in the figures at the beginning, which manner of figures is called by the Chaldeans Rahleenos”, we as latter-day saints really have a serious problem to address. And surely when a book which Joseph Smith assured the world in God’s name was written by Abraham himself, turns out to be a standard Egyptian pagan funerary text post-dating Abraham by eighteen centuries, and doesn’t even mention Abraham, its claimed author, it becomes morally incumbent upon the instructor to relay that information fully in class time to the students, so that they may give that information their prayerful consideration. Or do you disagree, Peter Bleakley? Who is it in the end who needs to be bolstered by lies and cover-ups in your view: the Lord, or a church which claims through Joseph Smith to be the Lord’s?